


The Same Thing Twice

by Laylah



Category: Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria
Genre: Community: fictunes, F/M, Post-Canon, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:25:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The soul she seeks is not likely here, but Hrist takes a firmer grip on her halberd and advances into the ruins anyway. If there is a new power growing here, the gods will want to know.</p><p>[ending spoilers!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Same Thing Twice

The Serdberg Ruins have changed since she was last here, Hrist thinks. It would likely not be visible to a mortal, was not terribly obvious even to her until she grew close, but there is a pall over the mountain now, a heaviness as of death suspended. As if the wyvern who lairs here has grown corrupt, or has been displaced by something less wholesome. The soul she seeks is not likely here, but Hrist takes a firmer grip on her halberd and advances into the ruins anyway. If there is a new power growing here, the gods will want to know, especially with the disarray in which Asgard lies without Odin.

She has taken only a few paces into the ruins themselves, past the seeping mist of the open spring -- where she hesitated, wondering if she should draw on Yggddrasil's power to aid her -- before it becomes plain that some horror must have happened here. The eagles and kobolds that should make their homes among the ruins are gone; in their place she is cutting down undead, shambling skeletons and empty armor that yet remembers the bloodlust of warriors whose flesh has long since rotted from within it. There are more of them than there should be in _any_ place that is not deeply tainted, and she begins to regret not retrieving a blessing of some sort from the spring; any half dozen of these creatures should be no match for the long sweep of her halberd, the strength of her powers, but there seems no end to them. Others step up to replace every corpse that she sunders.

And then a voice says, "Hold," certain and commanding, a voice she knows. Arngrim. She dare not hold, she would tell him, but the next thing he says is, "Fall back," and the dead besieging her cease their advance. They pull away, drawing back with their swords lowered, forming ranks as though their commander comes to review them before battle.

Arngrim stands beyond them.

Hrist feels herself stunned motionless, as surely as by any blow. He stands as proud as ever, and yet he is no longer the man she claimed for her own. His skin has bleached to stone gray, the scar a black seam across his face. Shadow curls tame beneath his feet, and the unholy fire that bathed Brahms's hands now licks along the length of the blade strapped to his back.

"Fancy meeting you here," he says, and his voice is just as she remembers, though surely it did not always raise her hackles like this. "Thought your soul was dissolved, or whatever."

"When Lezard's world fell, we found our souls drawn back to Asgard. Freyja denies having a hand in it, but she made us incarnate again." Hrist shakes her head. Here she is speaking to him as though they are allies, when he stands before her as an abomination. "Valhalla will not fall to you so easily."

Arngrim laughs. "What would I want with Valhalla? I'm glad to be out of there."

Hrist glares at him. "You are undead."

"You shouldn't have killed me if it was going to bother you that much," he says. Hrist shifts her grip on her halberd and takes a step toward him, and the waiting skeletons -- his _legions_, she thinks, and shudders -- lurch forward as though to attack. Arngrim waves them off. "Calm down," he says, and she doesn't know whether he speaks to her or to them.

"I will not apologize for that," she says. "I did as my lord bade me, and your death was your own choice when you attacked me."

He raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head. "If we start talking about what was and wasn't my choice, this'll get unfriendly real fast," he says. "So how about you? Odin doesn't have a mission for you now. What are you doing on Midgard?"

Hrist hesitates. He seems much like himself, and yet to trust one of the undead -- "You swear you hold no enmity with the gods?"

"I got no problem with Asgard," Arngrim says. "If I had nothing better to do I might march my boys down to Nifleheim and see about busting a few heads _there_, but I'm busy right now."

"Your arrogance will be your undoing," Hrist says, though she knows that truly, it will be hers; that cool, challenging confidence made her hire him in the first place, made her unwilling to leave him for Silmeria even when he rebelled against her.

He smiles, and his teeth are sharp. "Too late," he says. "I don't seem to learn my lesson anyway." He takes a step toward her, and she does not allow herself to tense. "I took this on because without Brahms coming back there was nobody to hold them in check. They'd be heading for towns without someone to give orders." His eyes are a dull copper red. Hrist realizes she can't remember what color they should be.

"I was right to choose you," she says.

Arngrim shrugs. "Everyone still standing has to do what they can," he says. "Now. You have my word that the undead won't march on Valhalla." He smiles again, and the expression is too human for his face. "Rufus would whine at me until the end of time. So what are you doing here?"

"Trying to prevent that very thing," Hrist says, and tries a smile of her own. It feels awkward; she was better at them when she traveled with him. "Our souls returned to Asgard. Alicia's is here, somewhere."

"Here?" Arngrim says. "Serdberg?"

"Midgard," Hrist corrects. "But we know not where. I am tasked with finding her, as well as choosing souls for Ragnarok."

"Huh." Arngrim folds his arms, appears to think about that for a moment. "Why you, and not Silmeria? Seems like, if anyone could find her...."

Hrist looks away. "I wonder." Rufus did not mention what had happened to Arngrim, before she left; she wonders if he knew, if Freyja had seen it, if -- or if, perhaps, there is chance even in the lives of the gods. "Come with me," she says.

"You asking," Arngrim says nodding at her halberd, "or are you going to stick that thing in me again if I don't say yes?"

She can feel herself _blushing_. This is absurd. "I'm asking," she says. Asking favors of the lord of the undead. She's no better than Silmeria.

Arngrim takes another step closer, and Hrist holds her ground, looks up to meet his eyes. His hands close around her arms and he leans down, and she should feel like more of a traitor than she does when she parts her lips to let him kiss her. His mouth is hot, when she expected chill, and he tastes of earth and old blood. His teeth feel sharp against her lips, but he is more careful with her now than she ever was with him. When he pulls back, she finds herself leaning into him, trying to prolong the kiss.

"Yeah," he says, without letting go, "I can probably leave these guys in charge here for a while." He looks over at the assembled undead. "You guys keep watch while I'm gone, all right? Nobody goes up to the summit until I come back. You can eat anyone who tries." He drapes an arm over her shoulders, and starts toward the door. "Where are we headed?"

She should shrug his arm off; he is too confident already. "Kalstad," she says instead. "You liked their date wine, did you not?"


End file.
